The Word of Your Body
by silver replies
Summary: "You were always the princess," Sakura remarks. "Whenever we played, you would always be the one wearing the crown." one-sided InoSaku, InoSaku friendship.


Theirs is a perpetual love, doting and unwavering.

The wind sighs through the thin maroon sheet covering them. Sakura traces patterns with her fingers across the fabric, the two shielded from the unforgiving rays of the sun. Ino blows in her ear and whispers empty promises to her, and they never were supposed to exist – at least, not in _this way_ because Ino has Shikamaru and Sakura has Sasuke or Naruto or maybe even _both_. "I love you," the blonde lazily whispers, another promise to be broken. Sakura breathes in the scent of yesterdays and languid, hazy summer afternoons eating strawberries, picking flowers, playing house.

Ino is beautiful, like Sasuke; but unlike Sasuke, Sakura knows and she knows and maybe Shikamaru even knows that Sakura can _break _the kunoichi if she wants to. She is palpable and human and she is _there_ when Sakura's team (Ino laughs at this, because she thinks that it's insulting to even refer to them as one, as if it's a mockery to the rest of the Konoha 11 who had _stayed_) isn't. Smiling gently, Sakura shifts onto her side to kiss Ino on the nose.

The blonde, in response, sneezes and Sakura laughs and it reminds Ino of spring, of flower petals floating in the wind without a destination. She feels warmth and sunlight, new beginnings and life surrounding her. When she's with Sakura, the ambiguity of tomorrow is forgotten and replaced with a sense of security, of belonging. It's the effect Sakura has on everyone, and that's why everyone is so in love with her, even though she can't see it herself. She overlooks the fact that Sakura hasn't given a response back, but Sakura _never_ responds when Ino tells her this and the upcoming war wouldn't change that.

Sakura stretches on the grass, pulling off the cover to sit up. She enjoys the feel of the wind murmuring to her, dancing through her hair. "Ino," she sings under her breath, fingers lacing through her long hair. "You were always the princess," Sakura remarks. "Whenever we played, you would always be the one wearing the crown."

The blonde meets her friend's gaze and smiles apologetically before brandishing a chain of wildflowers and placing them on Sakura's head. She kisses the corner of her mouth and feels Sakura tense under her touch. "That's because _I _needed to be saved," she explains. "And you were the only one who could do the saving." She kisses her cheek, trails slowly down the skin of her neck, leaving red marks against pale skin.

Sakura stands up abruptly, glassy green eyes startled, offended, appalled because Ino is _beautiful_ and all beautiful people are fucking insane but now she's just _sick_ and she makes Sakura sick. Sakura knows that Ino knows that she can have any shinobi she wants to have, and that her interest in them flickers on and off, and that after she gets what she wants she stops and Sakura doesn't want to be come that. She's tired of being thrown around, left behind. _But Ino's never left you behind_, someone tells her in the back of her mind. She feels like throwing up, like disappearing into some obscure corner of the world. Sakura takes off the flower crown and throws it at her companion. She dusts herself off, adjusts her forehead protector.

"Sakura-chan," Ino calls after her as she turns to leave. "You were the princess this time, you know." Her mouth is dry and her heart thuds in her chest. "You can be the princess next time, too… and maybe, I can be the one who saves you." And her princess stops walking away from her, but she doesn't turn around and she feels her heart stop beating and there's nothing but _pain_ and it's the kind she's familiar with, but she can never put a name to it.

"I'm done with playing pretend, Ino," she says softly, a defiant statement that hangs in the air long after she's gone.

The blonde shrugs off rejection, throwing herself onto the ground again. She yawns and licks her lips, contemplating the month of March and tastes spring on her tongue. The maroon shadow floats off with the wind and she laughs, throwing her head back, not even bothering to chase after it. The innocence of spring is gone, so she looks to the future with a kunai in her right hand, walking towards Konoha alone.

She then decides that the path of responsibility, of _maturity_ (a path that Sakura has walked and she hasn't) is a lonely one.


End file.
